


wires crossed, we're still here and the bomb's gone off

by certainlyjim



Series: wires crossed, we're still here and the bomb's gone off [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Age Reversal, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV James Bond, Post-Skyfall, Pre-SPECTRE, Pre-Skyfall, Pre-Slash, bearded!q, bond is a hundred percent depressed except he's not, except there's not really any comfort, older!Q, q has a beard, that comes later, younger!Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22205701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/certainlyjim/pseuds/certainlyjim
Summary: James Bond the young Icarus of MI6, jaded despite his years.The new, older, Quartermaster, jaded because of his years.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: wires crossed, we're still here and the bomb's gone off [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1598467
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: uh u see i saw [this](https://tarsusingkirk.tumblr.com/post/189658068726/quartermastercandlestickmaker-quartermaster) and went a bit feral , ha h a . just. not Exactly like the written portion of the post.  
> \- basically i did wht i swore to never do, rewrite a movie because of an au  
> \- un'beta'd, no brit pick

So, it starts like this.

He's the new double-o-seven. Well, others call him new, he doesn't. If someone asks him how many missions he's done, well, he's all flippant and modestly insincere about it, and then that someone never realizes he never answers, until they're gone and he's acting like the interaction never happened. The ones who do know his record are the only ones who ought to. But of course, he does know how many missions he's done as 007, that doesn't mean all and sundry get to gossip. His successful backlog soon garners enough apparent attention that he becomes first choice for unfucking total international cock-ups. The business of cock-ups is a bit unpleasant to some, but he bloody fuckin' adores it. 

If there's a certain amount of blow-ups and whatnots, his handlers suffer gladly with a blind eye. 

If this means weekly quite quiet lectures from M about respecting sovereign nations and allies and not ending up on the morning telly— he takes it like a champ, says yes ma'am, and then if on his next mission there is a bit of a blow-up, he coincidentally goes on an unscheduled holiday; coincidentally breaking his earpiece which unfortunately breaks comms with headquarters. 

All very bad and unfortunate. 

His holiday is most relaxing and if he pays visit to a few wanton individuals in the meantime? Headquarters is just supremely ecstatic that the terrorist organization from the country of the week is utterly and extremely decimated upon his sudden and mystifying appearance within the MI6 shooting ranges, weeks after the fact. 

It's all most splendid and well-to-do, if he must say so. 

\- - -

So, it begins like this.

Dearly beloved Spain is having a rotten time of it, a Russian splinter cell is causing a bit of a racket up north, and Section S calls back home for a lift. M doesn't wish to deal with him at that precise moment, so he's then shipped off, with a bow of gunpowder and dressed to the nines.

When he jaunts into Section S, it's a controlled madhouse, much more lively than headquarters, and he slips between scurrying techies, and stormy field agents like a magnet pushing like minded magnets away. Lively it may be, smaller and more confined it is, as he swiftly makes it to the Section Chief's office, a plain looking thing, made of dreary grey concrete and a faux-wood desk, he can see through the left open doorway. He's about set his foot in the door, when there's a clearing of throats beside and behind him.

He turns lackadaisical, brow piqued slightly. A head of hair, black as a dull boot, hides behind the back of a large computer screen, high enough to be level with Bond’s shoulders and neck. All he sees of the pale face behind boxy computer are the equally as dark eyes sheltered by horned glasses, as the man shifts behind it. Not that he hadn't noticed, merely he was only interested in a chat with the section head. Not that he wants to have a chit chat with the section head, moreso M receives great pleasure from ordering him to do things he would rather not— by stick, if not carrot. 

The man shifts again, behind his dirty-beige computer, as Bond languidly turns on his heel, and steps closer to the cluttered desk he is sat at, “Bond? James Bond, I presume.”

Words muffled by the computer, as Bond comes stood in front of him, make Bond force his slow movement through an incremental pause, because few if ever refer to him by name, it’s always ever ‘007’— at least within Six. 

Bond slides his hands into his pockets, “I do not have the pleasure of knowing you.”

This close, the man looks young, if not of age with himself. With eyes a green dark enough to be brown, blurred by the thickness of his glasses, as slim fingers elegantly come up and resituate them over his straight nose. “I will be a secondary handler for your mission, and have already procured you your mission essentials, 007.”

With that, the techie, he could not possibly be anything else at this point, shoves a worn and dented case over the elevated ledge of his desk. Bond doesn't look away from him as he slips a hand from a pocket and ghosts his finger over the small thing, before slipping his hand underneath it to lean on the ledge himself.

“Will I not have a debrief with the section head?” he says, watching as the techie's eyes flick down to the glare of the computer screen reflected in his glasses. Poor bloke seems to want to be anywhere but where he is.

“SecHead is unavailable at the moment.” the techie says, and Bond hears a quiet ticktack of furious typing, before it stops. The techie nods his head toward the case Bond has taken, “You've everything you need. You may proceed at your discretion.”

Immediately, the techie goes back to clickclacking. Bond tilts his head, as he lets a deep breath go, and flips open the slim case, thumb scratching over the rough hilt of a lone gun and two earwigs.

The techie's typing stills, “Sighing in disappointment doesn't become you, 007.”

Bond looks up from snapping the box closed, unbuttoning his suit, and sliding a hand up against his firm stomach, fingers just alighting on his shoulder harness, “No? Ought I not be a bit distraught at not knowing my handler's name? Oh? Did you think I was a bit put out for my paltry givings?”

The techie's lips purse, not that Bond can see any lips, he's not moved position from where he's stood, but he sees the minutiae of the man's cheeks pull down above the lip of the computer, and allows a small smirk to tighten his lips.

They stare at each other for seconds, until, “ _Secondary_ handler. You may call me H.”

Bond turns on his leant arm, the one holding the case, other hand going out wide to rest on the edge of the elevated edge. Perhaps the techie, this H, thinks he's looming. “H. Two earpieces?”

H blinks behind his thick reflective glasses, and from this new position, Bond can see his straight fingers twitch over the wired mouse of the computer, “In case you happen to, ah, misplace one.”

Hm, this H has researched him well, it seems. Too polite to tell him off for a history of disregarding MI6 Q branch tech. Stern enough to still mildly berate a double-oh to their face. Not a common trait in a run-of-the-mill techie

Bond glances down at the case as he tries to rattle the contents, before parroting, “H. H from handler, I presume.”

That non-sequitur gets him an eyebrow twitch just obscured by H's truly messy mop of hair and those black rimmed glasses. Bond just blinks innocent back, as he hears the squeak of a plastic chair in H's shifting. Bond adjusts H's age, because it honestly is quite a daft move to lie to a double o's face like this— so perhaps a tad younger, no spots in sight, but younger than him nevertheless, and not _just_ a techie. He shifts up from his slouching, keeping a guileless expression instead of a narrowing of eyes. Possibly, _the_ techie of this section. 

While they've been at it, there's been no interruptions, no sudden communiques arrived by messenger, no subordinates come to have things signed and whatnot. All very peculiar and interesting that Section S is playing keep away between him and their general populace. Then, he mentally shrugs it off; M likely warned them off.

H is just opening his mouth in retort, possibly blistering, when Bond takes a step back, waving the case in his hand, “Ta, then, H. Hear from you soon.”

Spins on his dapper heels and is out into the conveniently empty corridors when he hears, “Secondary handler!”

\- -

Cars careening through busy streets, skidding tyres squealing by sudden hand brakes around frozen thoroughfares, and heavy pops of gunfire zipping past. Bond takes a hard turn left, eyes intent on the rearview mirror, as he watches one, two, three cars speed past the alley he's turned into, but the rest of the stampede either crashes into the narrow entrance or skids through by the paint of their car after him. He feels more bullets whistle past him, ding his stolen car, as he turns sharply in his seat and levels his stolen gun towards his already broken rear windshield and depresses the trigger twice. The front of the herd of cars crashes in the wall behind him as he smartly turns back around in time to see the herd pulverize itself.

He flicks the safety on, as he makes another sharp turn in the dingy alleyway, trash bins bashing into and over his car.

He rides for minutes more, the noises of chaos soon slipping away into the rush of air, before he slows and turns into a break in the maze of alleyways, turns off the battered car, and listens as it ticks in cooling. It's quiet, the only sounds are distant and echoing, over the acrid stench of petrol and rotting refuse.

Unbuckling, he shifts towards the crashed-in driver’s side door. He puts his shoulder to the distorted thing, pushing at it, as it refuses to move, and wincing as the wounded shoulder tenses. Huffing, he switches his gun from one hand to the other, and crashes the butt of it over the window. It shatters with one well aimed hit, and he's able to shimmy through its sharp remains. 

Stood now, outside the banged to hell car, he's tugging at his singed lapels, and buttoning his suit jacket when he pauses, head cocking slightly as he brushes a hand down his flank. He stills with his hand pressed against his front, and there it is again. It'd felt a bit like a bug buzzing, but as he presses firmer against himself, he blinks as he remembers slipping the second earpiece into his front jacket pocket.

He takes stock of the silent and vacant alleyway, again, before he slips a hand in and presents himself with the second earpiece, small and rolling in his hand as it buzzes again. He moves around the ticking car, pauses near its boot, as a soft bluster of wind makes litter scratch and float for a moment, still letting the earpiece roll with incessant buzzing. It must be a hardy piece of tech; he'd gotten involved with a minor scuffle earlier, taken a few hits he’d not been able to roll with— he stretches his diaphragm with quick deep breath, and feels the tightness of bruises— but there the earpiece is, buzzing at him.

He considers it a moment more, considers where he needs to go, finds it a fair loss that he's to suffer a stern ‘talking to'.

So he slips the thing into his ear, as he finally abandons the dead car, and slips into the alleyway. “Hullo, R.”

The buzzing immediately stops, and he hears a click, and there's a small pause, before, “This is H, what is your status, 007.”

That makes Bond pause for a moment, before he continues walking, “Where's R.”

H sounds a bit pissy, and as he answers Bond, his voice stays tight, “R is unavailable for the duration of this mission.”

Ah, sulking in the engineering labs, then. Bond doesn't quip back, as he pauses at an intersection of two alleys, before taking a right. 

“007, what is your status.” H repeats, and he hears the clicking of a keyboard. Very pissy.

“Where's R.' see he can be a bit of a snot, too.

He hears a click as the connection in his earwig clicks off for a solid two seconds, and then, “You threw your gun at a hostile.”

“Out of bullets.” the sounds of a populated street are getting louder as he walks.

'You, then, threw your _earpiece_ at another hostile.” yes, that is a restrained anger in his ear; though, not as venomous as M's. It’s a bit endearing, actually. Like a sprog hitting at an adult's shins.

“Distraction.” he says. All true, of course. Throw something at a gunman, he focuses on that, not Bond tackling him through a very closed door. At that thought, he suddenly feels the sting of skin cut by splintering wood, down the left side of his face.

Bond comes to stop as he reaches a crowded thoroughfare. This part of town is a poorer one, stoops guarded by elder folk, and corners home to neighborhood gangs bolstered by youth the police ignore and menace in equal measures.

He hears H take deep aggravated breath as he turns into the sparse crowd of pedestrians, “The explosion—”

“— oh, that was an accident.” he says, coming to a store with an outdoor rack of clothes.

“— attracted the attention of the locals.' H pushes over his interruption in a decidedly flat voice, while he slips thirty euros into the hand of an old gent sat out in front of the store, “Their records show your intended target is dead, as well as is Pilar Romanov. Who MI6 did not want. Dead.”

He's slipping on a faux leather coat over his suit and turns away, back into the flow of people as he answers, “A deadend.”

The earpiece doesn't click off this time, and he can hear grey noise filter through; though, not any typing, and perhaps a slow taking of breaths, slight enough that the connection can only just pick them up as static. 

Then, “Why are you twenty six kilometers away from the mission site.”

“Ah,” he says, rucking up his newly acquired coat for a glimpse at his watch. It's cracked, what a shame. “A complication.”

He jogs over the road, past rusted cars, far past any prime they'd once had, toward a side street where he spies a barely filled parking lot.

“‘A complication’.” a glib repeat, and Bond reaches the lot, flits between spotty parking lanes until the main street disappears behind the walls of the strip mall. 

“Yes.” these cars are in as bad a shape as the cars on the main street, but moving closer to the backs of buildings lining the lot, a few beckon to him with weary paint but no rust. 

There is in fact a grand old beast hidden behind a large and derelict trash bin. Moving to it, Bond finds himself humming in appreciation.

He's considering breaking the window, or more quietly picking the lock when H's assuredly most surly voice crackles in his ear, again, words slow in anger, “Would you _care_ to explain this ‘complication’.”

Bond finally decides to get it over with, and takes his elbow to the window, shattering it in, glass glittering as it falls, “Bigger fish.”

H doesn't respond to this, nor does he click off, as Bond flicks the inner door lock, and sweeps the glass bits of the seat. It is a lovely car, but that it has the stench of old nicotine rubbed permanently into its bones, he notes as he slides in, hands busy feeling about for the hatch covering the wires he needs to get it started.

He's just gotten the hatch off and is fiddling with wires he can't see, when, “You are not sanctioned for any further actions, 007, please return to the designated safe house and await extraction.”

The car stutters into a loud purring around him, and he leans back up, twitching the rearview mirror. Apparently, ignoring the voice in his ear isn't working, but the utter lack of care in it almost makes him smirk in the rearview mirror. A newly trained pup, and naught but a day has passed.

He revs the car, before neatly backing out, “What was that, H? You're breaking up, oh no.”

He's just reached for the earpiece, when H starts spluttering, “‘Breaking up’? Oh, you— bloody wanker! Do not toss the piece, Bond, you f—”

Bond removes the piece from his ear, and tosses it out into the blurring scenery.

\- - -

\- - -

So, it stops like this.

There's something like a rush of wind, his hot blood cooled by gurgling savage waters, as he kneels over her body. Palms scratching over cruel cement, pawing at her dead body. He's being crushed and he can't stop it, but he's still breathing, and water runs down his down-turned face. He can't stop being crushed. He's— he's hurt, but plaster can't fix him. He's hurt. He's breathing but his breath won't come. It won't come, it won't come— all he hears is something like a rush of wind, but it's growing distant. He's growing cold.

\- - -

So, it stops like this.

M is right, saying he's learnt his lesson. He's cold, he's cold.

For Queen and Country.

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: more chapters incoming lmao  
> EDIT: that is q btw in the first scene


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: 1st: bond is a hypocrite don't listen to him   
> \- 2nd: bond is a lying liar who lies  
> -un'beta'd, no brit pick

There's more than one bitch in the world. She shoots him off a train.

Retaliation is a dead man going on a holiday, while home is a bleary concept he prefers not thinking of. Sex and alcohol blur his festering days, neither reach any further than skin deep; the cold in him is frigid, cooling any tendrils of warmth strong enough to make past his skin. Lets him revel in the pain splintering and spidering from his shoulder— the black market pills only leave him more nauseous, but he keeps swallowing.

It's just another day of a dead-man's holiday, when American news, of all things, on the telly at the bar pushes through the purposeful blankness of his thoughts. He turns slowly on the stool, feeling every ache deep in his dead bones, as the posh American continues blithely on. 

His fingers curl over the worn edge of the wooden bar, and the cool wind of a new morning ruffles the collar of his jacket.

\- - -

Turns out absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder, and M's still a tosser. 

She'll have him back, though, she will.

The tunnels are annoyingly cold after months spent on a beach, the bunker itself new and unfamiliar. It's not the only thing new. Six lost more than a building as a home; old Boothroyd and his second had gone down with their ship. Tanner tells him Q Branch was rudderless for only a few hours before a suitable replacement was found. He already knows M was absent, and he would say she's a lucky bitch but for Tanner droning on like he's some prodigal but reticent pupil, who needs to be told that whatever the bloody point of the explosion, that M was meant to see it. Rotten luck for a bitch, then.

\- - - 

He really rather thinks he might shoot Tanner, if the bloke doesn't fucking leave.

\- - 

Pain in the arse tests, and shrapnel mucking up his shot; fucking shit he's been out of the game too long.

He digs the shrapnel out with a knife he nicked off a techie’s desk, with an aplomb that carries him— no, he is not skulking, thank you very much, Ms. Moneypenny— whereabouts Tanner is set up near M's new office, flitting past the domain of Q Branch, because those he knew are gone. Carries him through the rest of those blasted tests, until he's fiddling with a cuff link in a waiting room, and pacing with an energy that's risen as he's burned off the dregs of the liquor and the pills.

\- -

He's of the mind to tell this Mallory gent to fuck right off if he's honest with himself, as he just limits the self-satisfied smirk off his face at his passing of those damn tests. He still leans back in the hard chair like a cat that's got his cream. 

Ah, but he doesn't miss M lying to his face, of course. A camaraderie of a shared past can only go so far amongst spies, after all.

\- -

He's decided Tanner's a prig, making him slough through the city to an outside drop-off. No, the city hasn't changer, the husk of old Six left to rot in misting rain and fog ridden cloud. It's about midday, the lunch crowd far too obnoxious and energetic, since he's shown up a bit early to case the place. Yes, he understands this new Quartermaster hasn't had the chance to set up shop; no, he would rather just surreptitiously acquire a gun on his way to wherever M is sending him. Alas, he doesn't know where that is, and this Quartermaster does. 

He makes a stop at a cafe and lurks outside sipping at a burnt tasting coffee in a plastic cup, breath and steam billowing out around him, watching the entrance to the National Gallery. Enough time passes to mollify his edges and he dumps the cold drink in a bin as he makes brisk towards the Gallery. He enters the slipstream of milling people and makes way, gloved hands resting in the pockets of his black overcoat.

He slips past a harried information desk attendant to the crowded lifts, watched over by a single guard.

Eventually, the lifts ding open and the crowd disperses. He ends up with a group of tourists, Americans, by their accents. One of them press the button for the second level for him, so he settles back for the moments it takes for the lift to reach it. It's far quieter here, the tourists off to do touristy things; and him, still quite early, sedately passing painted relics worth millions of pounds. He passes from room to room, sees the few securities loitering about, the odd art student with their sketchings. He makes a big circle out of it, avoiding the drop site.

Yet, he's still got that itch at the nape of his neck like he's got a tail. Pausing at a painting he pulls his gloves off by the finger, frowning down at them as he stuffs them in his pockets. He would've gotten a gun and been gone by now, if not for bloody Tanner, and this Quartermaster, and bloody dramatic spies!

He stays put for several gruelling minutes, staring at a long dead white woman poised in a long withered garden, before he starts moving again. Checks his watch, starts heading toward the drop; he's a room away when he almost misses the prick. He doesn't pause as he walks, but their eyes meet as Alec looks up from two people turning away from him, and smirks at Bond from under the bill of a security hat, and the blues of one, too.

He's posted midway into the room, like any other security, who's there to assist museum visitors, at any time, of course. As soon as Bond notes the annoying smirk, Alec goes back to playing the good security, just as Bond passes him. Well, at least Six hasn't gone completely daft, sending a department head out in the open like a pig to slaughter.

He's still vaguely eavesdropping on Alec's quite lost visitors when he steps through into room thirty four, housing  _ The Fighting Temeraire _ . His eyes sweep the place: noticing first, the woman in the far back stood in front of another painting; and second, the black haired gent sat directly in front of the  _ Temeraire _ , a baggy forest green anorak over his shoulders. If spies presumed, Bond would think this is the new Quartermaster sat exactly where the drop-off is scheduled. Only dead spies presume, however. As Bond moves closer, keeping his stride steady and unhurried, the bloke shifts in his seat, and Bond spots the unlit superslim dangling from elegantly long fingers. 

Soon, he reaches the bench and is sat a ways from the fidgeting bloke, who now that Bond's closer, looks younger from afar, and has a bleary look to him, behind the off-kilter smudged specs, and full beard. One of his legs is stretched straight out, knee locked, the other bent under the bench. He seems merrily set on ignoring Bond.

Only dead spies presume, but curiosity can only kill so many, “Like ships, then? Bloody big one, this.”

The bloke almost flinches at his voice, an instant stilling of all superfluous movement, only his superslim jerks between his fingers, “Excuse you.”

Right pissed off, and he doesn't turn to Bond, still slouched a bit forward. So, Bond, former fish-head that he is, keeps up playing daft.

“Well, it's only that,” here Bond leans forward as if trying to read the name of the painting, “‘ _ The Fighting Temeraire _ ', is it? Not much war going on. S—”

“Of course not.” the bloke cuts him off, exasperation clear, as his body finally turns slightly to bond, “Turner was doing the send off. It's suppo—”

"—supposed to evoke the melancholy of an old warship come one final time to roost, before being sold for scrap; unwanted by Queen and Country, both, after all she'd done for them.” Bond says, settling his hands on his spread thighs, and straightening his back.

“Oh,” the bloke says, and then finally turns his face to Bond, and Bond to his. He blinks at Bond behind his smudged specs with dark eyes made darker by the pallor of his skin. “007. Ah”

“Q.” says Bond, as Q's eyes flick over him, and then back to his face with a twitch of moue, there and gone in seconds. Perhaps, Bond might'n've interrupted him so much. Or, as always, reputations precede. 

Q precedes to free his face of his smudged specs with his free hand and open his anorak with the one holding the cigarette. In goes the specs, out comes a somewhat crumpled envelope. Q holds it out between two fingers, and it swings with the weight of his movement. The index finger is slightly crooked, looking to have been set wrong when it broke.

“Transportation and papers.” Q says, having turned back to  _ The Temeraire _ . There's a pause, then, “You know, I was expecting someone… of more experience.”

Bond liberates the envelope, before the Quartermaster decides to take it away, “Elderly agents are a rare commodity, Quartermaster, and age is hardly keen on efficiency.”

Without his glasses, Q looks older, and Bond can see the faintest of crow's feet around his dark green eyes. He doesn't seem to have a problem focusing on the painting, so either the specs are a sham or he's farsighted. He's not a single grey in his black mop, swept up from his forehead, nor in his thick beard. Bond sees his jaw clench just enough to move the beard at Bond's words. Perhaps, he doesn't appreciate the very light insinuation of being an elderly agent. Or, perhaps, he just doesn't appreciate upstart arseholes. Bond lets his lips thin and his cheek muscles tighten just enough for Q to see the beginnings of a smirk.

“Indeed. However, youth and innovation aren't oft keen on one another, either.” smart on his feet this Q. Bond lets himself fully smirk at his words.

Q catches his smirk, looks a bit ticked off over it, before turning away from Bond and coming back with a familiar black case. As he turns away from Bond, Bond catches sight of a small patch of skin near his hairline that reflects wetly in the harsh lights of the gallery. It looks rubbed into the pale skin, past his hairline and into the hair. Bond's gaze sharpens as he looks from the obvious head injury to other signs of hidden trauma. 

There, following the length of Q's slim turned neck, a smattering of developing bruises, Just hidden by foundation ill matching. A stiffness in the way Q turns, like his ribs are strained, obscured by the size and shape of his anorak, by the way he's wearing a black polo neck under a suit a size too large. The darkness under his pinched bleary eyes as he turns back.

Q flips the gun case in hand, yet agile and practised before pushing it at Bond. The way he holds it lets Bond see more of his hand, more of his slightly crooked and badly set fingers; all four of them are like that, in fact, and his thumb has an angular look to it near the base. Lets bond see the minute tremor running through his extended arm, like the small case is far too heavy. the dreadfully concealed bruises and buggered ribs are recent, but the crooked fingers are older, and bond's first reaction is: torture— but then, he knows not a thing about this new q. he does know what torture looks like on a body, though. 

A new Quartermaster, then, but not new to London and MI6. There during the attack.

He's excited before he flips open the case, immeasurably disappointed when all he gets is a fancy 'personal statement', and a bloody radio. It's Q smirking now, his nose all but in the air sniffing at him, before he tells Bond where he's off to.

Bond strokes the butt of the fancy walther as Q talks to the  _ Temeraire _ .

“What is so innovative about a gun and a radio, Q.' he says, when Q falls silent, the hand holding his unlit cigarette resting on a knee.

Q slides his eyes to bond for a moment without turning his head, before looking back to the painting, “Oh? Christmas morning a bit rubbish?”

Bond lets himself hum in agreement, as he closes the case, “Reminiscing of the classics.”

Q flicks his cigarette like it's burnt to ash, tilts his head away from Bond with a huff, “‘Reminiscing,’ he says. Bollocks. Nobody wears pens in bloody shirt pockets anymore. You lot just like explosions.”

Bond concedes to that. Things do tend to go belly up in a rain of fire, where double-ohs are involved. Early on in his double-oh career, even more so. He likes to think of it as a unique affinity. 

He's finally, after much hardship, received a Six sanctioned weapon; he can finally go out and do what he does best. Q seems done doing his Quartermasterly duties, still intent on the _T_ _ emeraire _ , so Bond nods to himself and stands. 

He's just turned, slipping the small case into his overcoat, when Q, “Do be careful with the equipment, 007, I would rather it back than not.”

Bond turns, and that's when he sees the slim black crutch hidden behind the line of Q's body, resting on the bench. His eyes flick from there to Q's outstretched leg, before going to Q's face, “No wish of luck for your agent?”

Q blinks a bit owlishly, perhaps a bit languid, and Bond can't quite tell if he smirks because of his beard, “Luck will only get you so far. Safe travels.”

Then, Bond is being ignored, again, and he's left staring down at Q. Tetchy fellow, this one. 

Bond turns to leave, again, and Q doesn't interrupt, so he starts walking out of room thirty four. He's just reached the entryway, when Alec, that arsehole, comes striding in. Completely ignoring him, but for bumping shoulders with him. Bond glares at him, and Alec grins past him. The insufferable git has lost his security outfit, and bumbling hat; in their place a roguish faux leather jacket over a dark shirt, and fitted boot-cut trousers.

They pass each other, not bothering to pretend at apologies like any two strangers would do in accidentally bumping into one another, and Bond digs his bloody gloves out and shoves them over his hands. Honestly, why M ever thought to give Alec double-oh status when he can't even behave during guard duty is beyond him.

\- - - 

Bond makes his plane ride like a good well-behaved agent. Bond is so very bored. He taps his fingers a moment on the armrest, as he looks out the small porthole of a window, other hand swirling a glass of horrible whiskey on the rocks. He may be sat in first-class, but it's a shit first-class— there's no martinis, because, what kind of airline doesn't have dry vermouth. Accounting must have a stranglehold over Six after the explosion and subsequent mad scramble, for this kind of service. 

He swirls his glass again, before putting it down on the empty tray to his right. He's sat alone on the starboard side, no one next to him, or across the thin aisle, only a laptop carrier in the seat next to him. He reaches over to the empty seat for the laptop carrier he… borrowed from an absent minded traveller at the aeroport, and slides the laptop out. It's a newer model, not yet banged up with use, and it only takes moments for it to boot up. 

He goes about deleting the password and restarting it before being able to use it. Clicking into the newly unprotected admin account, he digs into his suit pocket for a moment before revealing a thumb-drive to himself. He turns it in between his thumb and index finger a moment, thinking that Q Branch won't miss a single quite small and insignificant piece of tech such as this. Before he thinks more along those lines and realises he ought to go and delete any Q Branch camera's that had the audacity to record him swiping the thing. Even if it was simply him walking by an unoccupied station. All very innocent.

He plugs in the thumb-drive, and clicks into the preloaded Q Branch software. The plane's internet is shoddy, and a hard-line would be best, but hacking into the National Gallery's surveillance cameras is far too easy. He finds the camera focused on room thirty four and rewinds until the moment he left it and Alec sauntered in. Hm, Q Branch must still be in tatters, that the footage is still there. Old Boothroyd would have deleted it already, or had one of his numerous techies have the job done. Bond leans back in his seat, as he taps the space bar and the video starts.

/

Alec's pixelated form stutters into movement, moving towards Q, who's still sat on the bench. The quality of the video is shit, and makes Q look like a dark blob, against the lighter glare of the wooden floor. That there's no audio makes Bond _tsk_ under his breath as he leans on his forearm besides the laptop. Alec comes to stop in front of Q, who looks up with a shifting of dark pixels. 

Neither of them move, Bond suspects they are chatting, before Alec shifts closer and their dark pixels blend together as Alec hunkers down, his arms encircling the Quartermaster. Ever the opportunist is Alec, but Bond can see from the dark pixels that Alec's arm are the only reason Q is getting his feet underneath him. Q wavers in Alec's arms, as Alec keeps them both steady, until the static and pixels of them taper off enough for the camera to pitifully regain a focus. 

Alec shifts them again, before he's reaching for the discarded crutch— not that Bond can see it in the pixels, of course, he just knows it's there— and transfers it to Q, who takes it and shakily gets it to take his weight. Alec slowly drops his arms from around Q, who sways forward into Alec for a moment before he gets himself under control. They are stood there, again, unmoving, once again probably chatting, before Alec suddenly looks straight into the camera with a blurry frown. 

Bond knows this isn't live, it still makes him straighten slightly in his seat, as he watches Q turn slightly, following Alec's movement. Another pause he can't hear, before Alec gives the camera the two finger salute. Bond's eyes shift away from the screen, to the seat head in front of him in exasperation, before he looks back to the video, in time to see the Quartermaster and Alec leave the room. He pauses the video. 

/

Bond could scrub the footage for Q Branch, he ought to scrub it, but— and here his fingers drum once besides the laptop, before he closes the numerous programs until he's left staring at the default background, an obnoxious glaring blue— he ought to leave at least something for the techies at Six to do, too. It's all very much a hassle he would rather not deal with. Besides, he doesn't want them looking for him if he does do it. 

He shuts down the laptop and is left with his tired reflection. Perhaps, those tests were a bit more exhausting than he thought, as he scrubs a palm down the stubble he sees reflected in the dark screen. 

His other hand drifts to the glass sweating to his left, before he pauses. Or, it's the grudging fact that he subsisted solely on hard liquor for six months. He sighs as he pulls his hand back. Returning the laptop to its carrier, he leans back into his seat, looking out the window at clouds turning into smog beneath him and thinks he ought to shave.

\- - -

He's pleased when his fancy walther lights up like a green Christmas in his hand, as he watches Patrice kill a security guard. Less so, when he fuckin' lets the man slip through fingers weakened by a leather glove, and hanging off a lift for uncountable levels. 

He still gets a lead in the chase, though.

\- -

Macau is warmer than the cold smog and rain of China, and his healing shoulder doesn't twinge as much in the heat. 

Ms. Moneypenny is a titillating surprise, and she helps him finally get his shave. 

If he picks at her blouse, and runs his knuckles softly up and down her sides, distracting her from slitting his throat, like a particularly determined and single minded bloke, she lets him have his fun. Maybe, even joins in.

If he lets himself have a small smile remembering Q has an aversion to flying, that's no one's business but his. 

\- -

The sodding komodo dragons notwithstanding, he's absolutely and utterly delighted when the henchman can't shoot him with his own gun. Honestly, those overgrown lizards are much too fast for their size. Perhaps, a fancy 'personal statement' has it's points. 

Q seems a pissy thing, primed to go off at the slightest. Bond hopes keeping equipment for return isn't as dire a need as Q implied; he wouldn't want to be wrong-footed right off the get-go with his new Quartermaster. Well, more wrong-footed.

\- -

His heart beats out a thread of old despair as he watches Silva execute Sévérine, for no reason other than because he knows Bond, and knows his past. His hand lies useless at his side, clinging to the old duelling pistol, and he remembers the weight of it as he lifted it in wavering hands.

But, they have Silva now, they have him. It must be enough. 

It never is.

\- - -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: did u kno that queen victoria, the queen during the time depicted in the temeraire painting, was crowned in june of 1838, even tho she took the throne in 1837 *thinking emoji* i dunno what the difference is but it sent me spiralling trying to justify saying 'queen and country' and not 'king and country,' even tho the king before her died in 1837  
> -a superslim is a long n thin cigarette ok and it's v aesthetic thts my excuse bye   
> -this is not a 00q00 fic


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: not brit pick, un'beta'd

\- - -

M finally tells her secrets, a few of them, at least. Her rewards are politicians scenting blood in the water and an encrypted laptop.

The tunnels are still a damp cool, that doesn't stop in the dark, but continues into the retrofitted areas of new Six, and follows Bond’s silent footsteps into the brightness of Q Branch. Techies mill about in soft cardigans, and thick rimmed glasses, as he slinks through the open glass doors. This new Q Branch area is small, smaller than the one at old Six, and the bare white bricks curving around them, makes the space almost tight with echoes of keyboards and murmured voices. He strides through the middle of the room, techie stations to both sides and the obviously main station sat front and center. This station is easily twice as big as the other stations in the room and bare, looking more like a vacant table, but for Q standing in front of it, his back to Bond.

There's a tall stool directly behind Q, that he's not sat on, and his black crutch leans on the station table. The horrible suit he wore at the Gallery is lost, in favor of a thin black polo neck, that hugs his physic and trim waist, blending into the tapered navy blue combat trousers he wears. His shoulders are shifting under the fabric of his polo, and as Bond comes up behind and rounds him, Bond sees that he is typing on a laptop. The glasses from the gallery are still gone, too. 

“Ah, good, you've returned, 007.” Q says, still focussed on his laptop. This close Bond can see the bruises going from his hairline past his polo neck, and the just perceptible weight shifted from his right leg. “We've been setting up an isolated dummy system for cracking into Silva's computer. The man's proven himself as an adequate hacker; we'll not take anymore risks with Six's system.”

Bond stays silent, slips his hands into his pockets, fingers the radio he finds still there, and stares in wait as Q keeps typing. Soon, the empty screens on the front wall flickers to life, and Bond stops staring at Q, who is so very good at utterly ignoring him, to turn to it, watching lines of mangled code snare across it.

He decides to be an arsehole, “Why.”

Q turns to him, fingers resting on the keyboard, as Bond moves to the front of his station, closer to the large screens, “Brilliant coding. Insidious coding. If he's bright enough to program fail-safes in case of enemy incursion, he's bright enough to have secreted trojans into innocuous subroutines.”

Bond thinks that, yes, Silva is entirely capable of scorching earth were MI6 is involved, “Can you get in?”

He hears Q shift behind him, and turns slightly to watch Q almost gingerly makes his way to Bond, one hand never leaving the table, as he slowly limps closer. Because, of course, he's foregone his crutch. Q finally makes his way to Bond, a bit paler in the face. Now stood together, a techie comes up to them, and hands off a tablet to Q, eyes studiously avoiding even acknowledging Bond, before scurrying back to safety as Q mutters a 'thank you.’. 

The way Q is leant against the table, makes him almost a head shorter than Bond. Bond lets his head cock slightly as he recalculates how tall this Quartermaster is. Still a bit shorter than him.

“Only a handful of people can hack their way past these fail-safes.” Q says, not answering the question as he glances between his tablet and the screens on the wall, fingers quick over the tablet screen, “Ah, there we are, the partition is ready.”

Bond will not ask his question twice. He lets himself frown, a minute downturning of one side of his mouth, and Q catches it in turning with an arm braced on the table at his back, to look back at his techies. Turning so fluidly makes Bond think his ribs have begun to heal, there's none of the stiffness from the Gallery. Or it’s the good stuff from medical.

“V, would you please connect the hardline, thank you.” Q calls, and out of the homogeneous techies, a young black woman with natural red hair, bee-lines it for Silva's laptop sat on the far ledge of Q's station. Q watches her snap two ethernet lines in before turning back around, pausing slightly towards Bond, “Ah— yes, I created them.”

Q turns back to the big screen, and Bond lets himself smirk; because, coming from a younger man those words would be boastful and laced with pride, but coming from Q they almost sound sardonic— like Q knows boasting before the fact is just asking for it to backfire, but Bond asked the question, and he doesn't see why he ought not to've answered. He wonders where M found such an experienced and delightful creature. Perhaps, when this mission is over.

Bond moves his eyes from Q to the screen, and watches the whirling and cyclical manifestation of Silva's quicksilver code. Most of the screen is made up of that constant in-flux code, but the right side of the large screen has scrolling cyphers, random amagolations of letters and things that could be words. After several minutes pass, Bond cottons on that the continuously scrolling cyphers are repeating. Q has eyes only for his tablet as he taps away on it, and Bond can just see the screen of it scrolling with code past Q's crooked fingers. He shifts lightly enough, to the balls of his feet, that the glare of the overhead lights on Q's tablet flicker away enough for him to discern that the coding there is different than the large screens’. 

Bond looks from Q back to that screen, and preoccupies himself watching the cypher repeat, and repeat itself before— “Stop. There, can you see.”

He points with his chin, and Q looks up to where he indicates, fingers paused, with a frown behind his beard, “Too easy, an obfuscation.”

The letters spelling out ‘granborough’ are indeed filled with a temptation tied to a time limit, and Silva's the right sort of prick to enjoy his victims running along on a merry goose chase, but, “Have you anything else?”

Q's right eye twitches as Bond levels him with his stare once more. A nervous tick, or he's pissed the man off, again, “No, not at the moment.”

It's like pulling teeth, Q's words low and defiant, and Bond lets his brows rise.

“Very well.” sounds more like a hard 'fine', as Q glares at him, before his fingers flicker over his tablet.

As soon as Q's fingers input the cypher, the calm spider's web of silva's code falls upon itself like a gorging centipede tearing open its own guts in red the color of blood. Bond takes a step closer to the screen, abreast of Q, who looks up at the wild amalgamation in terse confusion, a small frown and furrowed brows.

“A map of…” Q starts quietly, shifting off the table he's been leaning on, tablet lowered in his grasp, as he too focuses on the larger screen. 

“An old stop, and now subterranean London.” Bond says, and hears Q give a small noise of understanding.

“What—” Q cuts himself off as Bond sees him turn away out of the corner of his eye, as a hiss of air pressure releasing catches his attention. “Shit!”

Bond takes a step to see what he sees, a glass hatch rising, and hears, another and another. Glass prisons rise in his mind, and he's just taken his step back, hands sliding out of his pockets, because, Silva, it's Silva— when Q whirls on his good leg, bad leg just brushing against Bond, foot pressing down with weight, when it crumbles under him, sending him crashing into Bond. The tablet crashes at their feet, as Q shudders against him, hands scrabbling at his suit, breath hitching, and Bond's— by muscle memory alone, like Q's an asset he needs to protect— arms come up around him, one over his trembling arms, around his chest, the other moving up so Bond's hand can cup the back of his neck. This close, touching him, Bond can feel the plaster up his forearm, hidden by his sleeve, and he tightens his grip.

He doesn't stagger with Q's sudden weight, just shifts slightly around so that Q is partially hidden from line of sight— bullets will meet Bond’s back before they hit Q. That's when he sees the security warning flashing on the large screen, and he stiffens around Q; because, he needs to be gone, he needs to go after Silva, because he's certain the man is gone, but he can't leave a Quartermaster unprotected— 

Suddenly, like wind rushing through a pipe, the rest of the chaos of Q Branch funnels in, and he glances back at them, and Q, he hears Q, “— 've happened! Shut it down! V, Shut it down!” 

He's still in Bond's arms, still leaning on Bond for support, but he's gotten an arm free and is waving it at his branch, between slapping at Bond's arm. The techies are panicking a bit. 

“Q.” he says, the itch to leave, to go after Silva, is growing. He feels it in the tips of his fingers, as Q jossles against him.

Q stills, looks up from watching the chaos of his branch, “Fucking fuck, that—”

“Q.” he interrupts quietly, starts dragging them closer to the table, until he untangles from around Q, makes sure his hands are solid against it, and he can steady himself. “I need—”

A minute trembling is running through Q as he slides to his forearms on the table, before he smooths a hand down his bearded chin, “Right, fuck. Go, go.”

The itch has grown into a fire and his fingers twitch, but Bond stays put, “I can't leave you alone.”

He can’t leave Q alone, he can’t leave an asset alone. Mathis flashes through his mind’s eye, being whole and well, and then Bond using him as a human shield, because Bond left him alone. He’s learned from his mistakes; christ, he has. Learned them with blood on his hands, and friends desecrated.

Before Q replies, the bright lights of Q Branch flicker, and as Bond looks up, they stabilize, but duller. Emergency power, he thinks.

Q slumps against the table, brings a hand up and motions with it, “I'll not be alone. Alec is here. Go.”

Bond looks to where Q vaguely indicated and spots Alec, stalking silent through the herd of high-strung techies. The fire in him flares and he looks away from Alec, who only has eyes for Q, back to Q. He doesn't nod, he just takes a step back and begins running. 

\- -

It's only after he's gone down the hatch Silva's escaped down, Q finding him even though he knows where he is, and running into derelict tunnels, that he processes Q calling Alec, Alec. Not 006, not Trevelyan, but Alec, leaving his lips like he's grown accustomed to saying the name, like he's familiar with it, a perceived closeness; a camaraderie amongst those who've known each other longer than in-passing. Alec and he have known each other since before achieving double-o status, an achievement itself that he can say it's been ages since they bequeathed unto one another their forenames; what with the oft short lived careers of double-o agents. 

He can't say Alec's never let slip a close companionship with Q, for the very reason that Q is Q. Letters are the bread and alphabet soup of what they do, after all. A relationship with a techie? Or a technologically inclined older gent? Bond digs into his memories, as Q becomes a bit cheeky about fairly obviously locked doors in the tube, with a train on the way. No, he decides, as he shoots the bloody thing open, not even when the two of them get utterly sozzled. Nor that time Alec tried to tempt him into a game of russian roulette. 

When he spots Silva sneaking up a ladder, he's no time for higher thinking, as another bloody train careens after him.

\- - -

Snatching M from under the nose of Tanner is entertaining, and kidnapping her disgruntled self even moreso. M taking the piss out of his lovely beaut, however, is a low blow; she knows how he adores his cars. She's just being a brute about the whole kidnapping thing, really. 

Q proves to have superficial enough ties to MI6 rules, and he gladly jumps into the deep end of unofficial espionage, with nary a backwards glance.

\- - -

\- - -

It ends, again. Another bitch gone before her time.

He gets to touch her this time, as she lie breathing her last, the cold of the scottish moor, and ice of the bog, settling over his jacket, seeping into his jumper, crystalizing around his heart. He bows over her, cradling her in numb arms, hands wet with blood curling in her black coat. 

The stone floor of the kirk is hard against his knees, and the burning of the distant lodge paints them all in a false sunset.

\- -

By the time retrieval arrives, her body is cold.

He's long since stopped shivering. There's ice in him now.


End file.
